CT 



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I KNcAv THAT MY ReDEEMEK LlVETII.'" 



A SERMON, ^> 




PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF 



Mrs. Hon. J. H. Godman! 

IN THE 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 

Marion, Ohio, 
JANUARY 5th, 1873, 

By REV. WILLIAM JONES, M. D. 



PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. 



CLEVELAND, O. : 

FAIRBANKS, BENEDICT * CO., PRINTERS, HERALD OFFICE. 
1873. 



GTVis 



Exchange 

WeBt. Res. Hist. Soc. 

1915 



Urs. inn g. (gobman: horn fuln 13%, 1812; 
bieb fannarj Sis, 1873. 



SERMON. 



2 Cor. v : For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. 

The topic of oar discourse this morning is 
Faith — the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen. 

The religion of Jesus Christ, so far as it is valu- 
able to the individual, is experimental — not that 
we are to experiment as to its truthfulness — but 
that we are to experience its saving power upon 
our hearts in this life. 

The Christian religion is based upon the fact 
that God, the everlasting Father, is able to put 
Himself into conscious contact with His chil- 
dren — to infuse the divine life into the soul to such 
an extent, as that the individual can truthfully 
say: "Not I, but Christ;" "Christ dwelleth in 



6 



me, and the life that I now live, I live by the faith 
of the Son of God." 

If this is not true, Christianity is no better than 
any other system of morals or philosophy. 

There are two modes of approach to every 
human soul — the organs of sense and the con- 
sciousness. There are also, in every human soul, 
two processes by which it determines its sur- 
roundings — the consciousness and sense. That 
God in His approaches to us uses both these 
modes, is in perfect harmony with our experience. 

God speaks to us by His written word, assuring 
us of His love ; assuring us of His paternal regard 
for us ; that He watches over us, declaring that 
even the hairs of our heads are all numbered, and 
that He is more willing to give the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask Him, than earthly parents are to 
give good gifts unto their children; assuring us 
that having given His only begotten Son to be a 
ransom for us, He will also ' ' with Him freely give 
us all things," and assuring us most compassion- 
ately that He will "save to the uttermost all that 
come unto God by Him." 



But God can put Himself directly in contact 
with the soul and overwhelm it with the con- 
sciousness of His presence. The penitent soul, 
without uttering a word, or reading a book, or 
seeing a priest, or hearing a voice, may draw nigh 
to God and be conscious of His saving grace ; and 
the mature Christian may, in the same manner, 
be conscious of an indwelling Christ, and through 
Him know the Father' s love. 

The apostle says, in the text, we know. There 
is no doubt in his mind at all, although he only 
affirms a fact, without giving the process by which 
he came to be acquainted with the fact. But he 
affirms this not for himself alone, but, putting 
himself into a representative position, affirms the 
experience of the Christian world. 

What is the fact asserted in this Scripture? 
The apostle had solved a problem in philosophy ; 
he had demonstrated a question that sages had 
been discussing for years, and with every doubt 
swept away, with unclouded vision he beholds it, 
and exultingly proclaims it to the world; and this 
is the great truth : / know that if this body do 



perish, that will not destroy my consciousness, for 
I have demonstrated the fact that my soul is 
capable of a separate life. Instead of thought 
being evolved from matter, under certain com- 
binations and forms, I have an organic soul that 
lives and thinks and wills, and in its relations to 
the body is so harmoniously adapted to its organ- 
ism, that it uses the body while it remains in it, 
but it is not the body nor the phenomena of the 
organism of the body. 

How beautiful this figure, how sublime this 
truth. If this tabernacle were taken down, I — 
my soul — the intelligent principle — the ego has 
the capacity for independent conscious existence. 
See that cottage on the hill-side ; there is a lamp 
on the table, and the light streams out through 
the open shutter ; but for the light you wou^d not 
know in the darkness that the cottage was there. 
Is that light the result of the architectural finish 
of the house ? is the window the light \ No, the 
light is independent of the house, but a con- 
venient appendage to the house ; it makes its 
beauties apparent, gives cheer and comfort to all 
within, and makes the house a 7wme. 



9 



But you may take down the house piece by 
piece, and the lamp will burn on because it is 
independent of the house, and may be placed in 
another building where its light shall not be extin- 
guished by the midnight tempest. 

This is what the Apostle affirms in this text. He 
declares that the body may be taken down, its 
material particles may be dissolved to dust, and 
scattered to the four quarters of the globe, but 
that will not extinguish the light of his intelli- 
gence ; the lamp of his intellect will burn on, it 
not being a result of the organism of the body — 
not being fed by material exhalations, but being 
pure Spirit it can exist independent of this earthly 
tabernacle, and God will place it in another temple 
where the howling storms of chaotic night will 
never reach it. Hence the Apostle asserts the fact 
that he shall not dwell in the land of shadows, he 
shall not traverse the region of doubts. For he 
does already know that if the intelligence con- 
tinues after death, all the facts stored in the mind 
remain as the property of the soul, and if the soul 
knew God here it should know him more perfectly 



10 



hereafter. To him, faith was then the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
And Charles Wesley, having attained to the same 
height in Christian experience, bears his testimony 
to the same fact. 

"The things unknown to feeble sense. 
Unseen by reason's glimm'ring ray, 
With strong commanding evidence, 
Their heavenly origin display ; 
Faith lends its realizing light, 
The clouds disperse, the shadows fly, 
The invisible appears in sight, 
And God is seen by mortal eye." 

Thus we find it clearly taught in revelation and 
abundantly sustained by experience, that the gos- 
pel does not come to us through the avenues of 
sense alone. 

The gospel appeals to our consciousness, demon- 
strating the existence of God. Every human soul 
upon the face of the earth is conscious of this 
contact with the supernatural, in one form or 
another. There is no fact in the material universe 
better understood than the phenomenon of spirit- 
ual contact in the domain of Spirit. 



11 

The Scriptures teach us that God' s spirit bears 
witness with our spirit that we are the children of 
God. 

As we have already seen, this is not the testi- 
mony of the senses, but of the consciousness. 
While it seems to be a profound mystery to many 
persons that God' s spirit should testify directly to 
the inward cleansing of the believer, they, with- 
out hesitancy or concealment, acknowledge that 
they are not Christians, and that God' s spirit does 
strive with their spirit, and convinces them of sin, 
and bears its direct testimony to their own con- 
sciousness that they are not the children of God. 

The thought of the supernatural can not be 
excluded from the human mind. Nations and 
men tremble at the silent approaches of Jehovah. 
The ' ' wilderness prince ' ' in the land of Uz, whose 
wisdom was gleaned from the "libraries of the 
everlasting hills," who beheld the footsteps of Je- 
hovah in the "thunder- split hills" of his native 
land — although as full of courage as his own war 
horse, "pawing in the valley" — "is a mere man 



12 



trembling in the presence of a spiritual power" 
that overwhelms him. The Psalmist was con- 
scious of the presence of the supernatural when 
he exclaimed, "Deep calleth unto deep, at the 
noise of thy waterspouts ; all thy waves and thy 
billows have gone over me." Thus God comes to 
every human soul in one form or another, con- 
sciously filling them with the fact of his presence. 

In the twilight of evening when you have been 
alone, you have felt the presence of the supernat- 
ural steal over you, and you have been awed into 
tears. Or in the solemn silence of the midnight 
hour the consciousness of God has come directly 
in contact with the consciousness ot man, and for 
a moment the creature has stood face to face with 
the creator. Thus the deep from above calls to 
the deep within assuring us that God is, and that 
"He is a rewarder of all them that diligently 
seek him." 

Our immortality is demonstrated to our con- 
sciousness. The problem of human existence 
cannot be solved upon the hypothesis of annihila- 
tion. 



13 



No human soul has ever become so dark as not 
to conceive the thought of future life, and entertain 
the hope of its enjoyment. I exist, says the 
consciousness ; I am fully aware of my surround- 
ings, but I cannot entertain the thought of 
annihilation. I cannot accept the idea of extinc- 
tion, my soul revolts at the suggestion that I may 
some day cease to be. Consciousness says I live 
now, and shall live for ever. You may shut up 
the soul in the dark prison-house of ignorance, 
you may weave your sophisms around it and 
bind it to the car of speculation ; you may pile 
theory after theory around it, you may load down 
the mind with care, or intoxicate it with pleasure ; 
you may bribe or threaten the conscience, and yet 
the soul of man universally asserts the fact of its 
immortalit}'. How we have thought on death — 
what reflections have overwhelmed us as we have 
stood between the empty crib and an open grave 
and looked into its darkness ; we have followed 
our loved ones until they entered the darkness of 
the shadowy vale, and then, our imagination has 
pierced the gloom, and far above principalities 
and powers, we have seen them on the hills of 



14 



light ; and the Gospel responds it is true, for "I 
saw the dead, both small and great, stand before 
God." 

Our heirship to heaven is demonstrated to our 
consciousness. 

The Apostle says : "For our Gospel comes not 
unto you in word only, but in power, and in the 
Holy Ghost and in much assurance.-' As if he 
had said our Gospel is not simply a theory ; it is 
life and power. Our Gospel comes not to you as 
the systems of men through the avenues of sense, 
but it comes to your consciousness by the operation 
of the Holy Ghost, assuring you beyond doubt 
of your heirship to everlasting life. 

If an individual can know anything he can know 
his relationship to God ; in the mouth of two or 
three witnesses every word shall be established. 

Where two or more rays of light meet each 
other there is increased brightness; and where 
our senses and consciousness join their testimony 
to our sonship and the Holy Ghost comes in much 
assurance of that fact, the testimony is incontro- 
vertible. Hence the universal experience of the 
Church is that if a man is converted he knows it ; 



15 



he may not be able to refer to the exact moment 
when the change took place, bnt when it is com- 
plete, when he is a ''new creature in Christ 
Jesus," he is conscious of that fact. 

He does not have to ask his pastor, or call the 
church together to examine him and determine 
the question of his heirship to heaven, but straight- 
way, like the man in the G-ospel, he publishes it 
abroad. It is true that there is no scientific test of 
discipleship — no legal test — but there is a sure test 
nevertheless. 

There is no evidence that a man can see equal 
to the fact that he does see. The best evidence 
that the human ear is so constructed as to adapt 
it to the waves of sound, is that through the 
medium of the ear we do become familiar with 
the idea of sound ; and the clearest evidence we 
can have of the power and willingness of Jesus to 
save us, is, that he does now save us and assure 
us of that fact. 

A little boy had been deaf for months, he thought 
he should never hear the merry laugh of his 
brothers and sisters as they engaged in play, he 



16 



thought he should never again hear the voice of 
his mother, in accents of love, commend him to a 
compassionate Saviour, or pronounce the coveted 
well done, when he had succeeded with his task. 

One day, while engaged in play, by a spontaneous 
effort of nature, the difficulty was removed, and he 
heard the glad shouts of his sisters and brothers, 
heard his mother calling to the evening meal, and 
with tears of gratitude rolling down his sunburnt 
face cast himself into his mother's arms, saying — 
" I can hear now." 

In the same manner when the Spirit of God 
opens the ears of deaf souls so they can hear the 
Saviour's voice, saying — "Thy sins which are 
many are all forgiven, go in peace," the soul is 
as conscious of that fact as was the little boy 
whose ears were opened. God comes into the soul 
through both consciousness and sense, and over- 
whelms it with his presence, filling every- avenue 
of our being with his divine fullness. But we are 
met here with the objection that these things are 
not possible, that this is not consistent with human 
experience. But for an individual to say, this is 



17 



not possible, is only to say that he has not yet 
risen to such heights of experience as to know it 
for himself, and his ignorance of such an expe- 
rience does not make it impossible in nature 
nor in fact. 

If two men were to testify that on the 7th day 
of August, 1869, they saw an eclipse of the sun, 
and live other men of equally as good character 
were to testify that they did not see the eclipse of 
the sun on that day ; the testimony of the five 
would not invalidate the statement of the two ; it 
would only prove that, according to their own 
confession, they were not in a position to see that 
which actually did occur. 

Thus when an individual says he does not 
believe in experimental religion, for the reason 
that it is not in harmony with his present expe- 
rience, his testimony goes no further than to 
prove that up to that time he has never opened 
the door of his heart to admit the precious 
Saviour. Go to that wretched hovel, where the 
poor washerwoman toils over her foaming suds 
for her daily bread ; speak to her of her hope in 

2 



18 



Jesus. By what test would you determine her 
heirship to heaven? Would you ask her to 
study some learned disquisition on physical sci- 
ence, to ascertain her relationship to God ? Would 
you have her sit at the feet of some theological 
Gamaliel, or consult some modern philosopher, to 
gain the knowledge of pardoned sin \ Would you 
have her wander on through life in the dark 
mazes of uncertainty, haunted by the fiends of 
doubt and despair. She can neither afford to do 
the one nor endure the other. Her sleeping chil- 
dren will awake soon, and their unsatisfied cries 
for bread would wring tears of agony from her 
aching eye-balls ; her toil knows no intermission, 
for they are dependent upon the proceeds of the 
present toil for the next meal. 

But God comes to her relief; He obviates all 
these objections. With one mighty wave of His 
infinite love He sweeps away all technicalities, 
every false theory, every refuge of lies ; He comes 
in His divine fullness to her own consciousness ; 
the Holy Ghost seals upon her heart a complete 
pardon, written in characters of blood by the 



19 



nailed hand of the Crucified One ; she looks up 
from her toil, from her suffering and want, to her 
mansioned home in glory, and in the fullness of 
immortal hope exclaims : 

" My God is reconciled ; 

His pardoning voice I hear ; 
He owns me for His child ; 

I shall no longer fear; 
With confidence I now draw nigh, 
And Father, Abba, Father, cry." 

But let us go a step farther. If our reasoning 
is correct, we may rise to a higher plane for 
the exercise of our powers. Faith does act as 
promptly upon the testimony of our conscious- 
ness as it does upon the evidence of our senses ; 
and a genuine faith first perceives the soul's 
wants, and instantly bears it away to the source 
of supply. 

It is through the testimony of our conscious- 
ness that faith brings us into contact with the 
distant, and becomes "the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," and 
enables us to rise at once from the scenes of 



20 



actual experience of present bliss, to the realiza. 
tion of grander developments in the future. 

Who that has wandered through Central Park 
on a beautiful summer day, sat down beneath its 
embowering shades, looked upon its artificial 
lakes covered with their tiny craft, feasted the 
eye and ear upon the beauties and melodies of 
nature and art, can ever lose one touch from the 
beautiful picture there photographed upon the 
mind I 

Or who that has stood upon the summit of 
the Alleghenies on a bright June morning, and 
looked toward the east, as the sun was rising to 
the duties of the day ; when the lingering drops 
of the midnight shower, touched by his golden 
beams, made the air radiant with a thousand 
rainbow hues ; can ever lose the impression the 
sublime scene has made upon his mind? Nor 
would the destruction of his eye-balls efface the 
picture. It lias become a part of his being; 
faithful memory has stored it away beyond the 
"immediate sphere of the consciousness," in the 
secret repository of the soul, where the recollection 



21 



shall always have access to it. And the soul 
that has once stood face to face with God, that has 
been conscious of an indwelling Christ, that has 
felt the warm pressure of the divine hand upon 
his own outstretched palm, in hours of darkness 
€an never lose the knowledge of that fact, though 
he should go down to hell. 

This was the Apostle' s sublime experience as 
recorded in the text. He had settled all doubts 
on the subject ; his immortality had been demon- 
strated to his consciousness. He knew that he 
should live forever and not lose one jot or tittle of 
his conscious being. What then if his body 
should die \ His sonl should survive its dissolu- 
tion. What if the pins were taken out of the 
earthly tabernacle, and it were taken down % The 
light that burned upon its altar and beamed from 
its windows shall not be extinguished, but in that 
place which God shall appoint, it shall burn on 
till in the resurrection morn it shall be clothed 
upon with its purified body. 

Nor is this position without direct Scripture 
proof. The patriarch, when bowed under a 



22 



load of sorrow, stripped of his earthly posses- 
sions, his children gone, his glory prostrate in 
the dust ; when disease had covered him with 
loathsomeness and licked up the moistnre within 
him ; deserted of his wife and mocked of his 
friends, with a piercing wail of sorrow mingled 
with triumph that comes across the gulf of four 
thousand years, exclaims — "Oh, that my words 
were now written ; Oh, that they were printed in 
a book ; that they were graven with an iron pen 
and laid in the rock forever." "For I know that 
my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the 
latter day upon the earth." He has demonstrated 
to my consciousness my immortality, and now "I 
know that after my skin worms destroy this body, 
yet in my flesh shall I see God." "Whom I 
shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, 
and not another." 

As we reason upon this subject, we find reason 
supports the above position. 

Our happiness or misery will depend upon our 
consciousness after death ; therefore it can not 
cease at death. 



23 



But if the consciousness were dependent upon 
the bodily organism, when that was interrupted 
or impaired, the phenomena of intelligence and 
religion would both cease ; but actual experience 
demonstrates that it is not contingent upon the 
completeness of the bodily organism. We may 
lose nearly all of the body and not impair the 
consciousness. We have seen men upon the field 
of battle mutilated to such an extent that their 
most intimate friends could not recognize them by 
sight, and their consciousness remained unim- 
paired. We have seen our friends waste away 
particle after particle, under the blighting influ- 
ence of consumption or fever, until there was 
scarcely enough left to clothe the spirit that still 
retained its full vigor, and then we have held their 
bony hands in ours as they went down into the 
valley of death, and the mind was strong and 
clear as ever ; and when we heard them shout 
back their triumph from the other shore, we were 
convinced that no human soul could ever know 
any less than it knows now. 



24 



This demonstrates the recognition of friends in 
heaven. Do we know and love here? then if 
that which we have said is true — if onr reasoning 
is correct — then shall we also know and love in 
that glorious world on high. 

If the visions of earthly beauty and magnifi- 
cence that have fallen upon the eye and have 
been photographed upon the mind, can never 
be effaced, then shall the forms of our loved 
ones, that have been so dear to us in this life, 
that have so impressed themselves upon our 
being here, appear in more than earthly splendor 
when we, with them, "behold the King in His 
beauty." 

There is no consolation to be drawn from the 
idea of extinction or any of its kindred thoughts ; 
it is repulsive to the mind. If heaven were a 
blank, there could be no desire for it, and the 
apostle was mistaken when he said to "depart 
and be with Christ" was better than suffering 
in this world; for if heaven is oblivion, life is 
better than heaven. Imagine a blank, an uncon- 
scious void, an uninhabitable space, a chaotic 



25 



waste. Imagine coffins rising in tiers, and 
stretching like a vast amphitheater for count- 
less leagues; or cold, stiff and ghastly corpses, 
staring motionless with sightless eyes. Our con- 
sciousness refuses to take in such a scene; it 
revolts from it, because its falsity has been 
demonstrated. 

We turn away from such a thought; we open 
the Word of God, and find that its teachings cor- 
respond with our consciousness upon this point, 
and our faith instantly pierces the gloom, and we 
behold Jesus no longer wearing the mock purple 
or plaited thorns — no longer stained with gore 
and begrimed with dust and sweat, but walking 
amid the golden candlesticks, or going forth fol- 
lowed by the armies of heaven, or leading his 
saints beside the crystal waters, or refreshing 
them beneath the trees of paradise. And the 
Bible says it is true: "For after this I beheld, 
and lo ! a great multitude that no man could 
number, of all nations and kindreds, stood before 
God and the Lamb, clothed with white robes and 
palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice, 



26 



saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon 
the throne, and to the Lamb." "Again I heard a 
voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle 
of God is with men, and He shall dwell with 
them, and they shall be His people and He shall 
be their God. And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying, for the former 
things are passed away." 

Thus revelation and consciousness assure us 
that heaven demands the full exercise of all our 
intellectual powers. When the Christian shall 
come forth from the grave ; when he shall emerge 
from the deep abyss of the fall ; when Jesus shall 
have destroyed the last effects of sin ; when man 
shall have been made perfect in the new creation, 
with every stain wiped away ; then he shall stand 
before God, and join the vast multitude that have 
"gone up out of great tribulation and washed 
their robes and made them white in the blood of 
the Lamb," in one grand prean of praise to Him 
"that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb." 



27 



It was a realization of this hope, a demonstra- 
tion of this fact to her consciousness, that enabled 
the deceased years ago in the presence of many 
that are here to-day, to exclaim — "When these 
poor feeble powers of mine shall be immortalized 
and / shall stand on the other shore, then, with 
lungs that shall never weary and a tongue that 
shall never falter, with lips that shall never trem- 
ble with fear, and with an energy that shall never 
know weariness, I shall join the glad song of 
redeeming love." This enabled her to say — "For 
/ know that if the earthly house of this taber- 
nacle were dissolved, / have a building of God, 
a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." 

And what shall we say more to the circle of 
mourning friends? "The golden bowl is indeed 
broken;" the " silver cord loosed," and the 
"pitcher broken at the fountain;" but the light 
that burned in the tabernacle is not extinguished ; 
in that place where our glorified Saviour dwells it 
shines on with a brighter lustre than it ever mani- 
fested here. 



28 



And what eulogy shall we pronounce upon her 
whose remains lie before us? The ancients raised 
vast pyramids to commemorate the heroic deeds 
of men. The Grecian sculptor put his life into the 
perishing marble. But the life-work of this Chris- 
tian woman was on the enduring substance of the 
human soul ; her faithfulness and skill are attested 
by those who by her precept and example were 
led to Christ, or in their more mature Christian 
life strengthened and established in the way of 
holiness. Her most fitting eulogy is the purity of 
her life ; her monument the memory of her good 
deeds. 



* 



Q. M 






y.2Rft2L OF CONGRESS 



